July 2009 Issue

The God Squad

God still seems to have an inordinate effect on everyone’s life whether we are religious or not. This influence doesn’t end with sermons and verbal condemnation of religious hate objects, most notably gay men. In this issue we examine some of the forms this influence takes.

Demonic Christians

Islam, that great religion of peace, is widely known to be the most cruel and brutal oppressor of gay people but now the God Squad in its Christian guise is getting in on the violence, too. George Broadheadreports on disturbing news concerning dangerous Christians in the UK who claim to be able to cast out “homosexual demons” from their gay children. This demonic Christian cult originated in the USA where the Manifested Glory Ministries Church in Bridgeport, Connecticut, made a video of one of their assaults on a young gay man. We have video footage of them in action performing this most offensive and destructive ritual.

Punished by God

Of course, if the God Squad can’t beat the homosexuality out of us, they can invoke God’s wrath and blame us for all sorts of natural ills and disasters because of it. In his article Does God punish people?, Neil Richardson argues that his fellow Christians must stand against those who want to reduce the Christian church to a group of narrow, hateful, self-hating, closed-down and self-congratulating heterosexual bigots.

Write to freedom

In Iran, it’s not just gay people who must be put down; believing in free elections and democracy is enough to bring down the wrath of Islamic state violence. In an open letter to the international community, the Homosexual Students of Iran condemn this violence and point out that the homosexual people of Iran are uniquely able to identify with the suffering of their fellow countrymen and women under the tirade of state violence, having themselves suffered such continual persecution for the past three decades and more.

Heathen stronghold

In the second of a three-part series, Colin de la Motte-Sherman examines Lithuania, the last bastion of “heathenism” within Europe, which is now a rabidly Catholic country. Sherman points out that a US State Department report says that most of the hate-related allegations of discrimination relate to racist, anti-Semitic, or homophobic expressions or activity. It seems that wherever the God Squad have power, hate, violence and persecution follows in its wake.

Collection of legends

In this issue’s Out of Print feature, Charlie Coventry explains why, to uneducated people long after they have lost any church connections, the Bible is still an object with magic power that can’t be thrown out, even if it is damaged by dampness and so not usable. He argues that the origins of these vestigial superstitions go back to the early “atheists” who were at a stage of reverse literalism, always having to “make sure” the Bible was “merely a collection of legends”.

Exclusive video interview

We feature George Broadhead, co-founder of the gay humanist movement, in an exclusive video interview – conducted by Christopher Clarke – where he tells the story of the birth of the British gay humanist movement.

Trust in Pride

The Pink Triangle Trust was again at Pride London this year. See how they got on in our report PTT @ Pride, which has some evocative photographs of the day as well as information on how you can join the fight against the God Squad.

Though nowadays a gargantuan event, Pride London was not always so. In his First Pride article, Peter Tatchell remembers the UK’s first Gay Pride march back in 1972.

When men were men

Andy Armitage remembers the time just before gay liberation flexed its muscles, when Britain’s laws against homosexuality were about to change. In the second of an occasional series of personal reminiscences, Armitage travels back to the 1960s mining village in which he grew up – where miners were heroes and “men were men”.

Blogging on ...

Finally, we take another visit to see what’s been happening over at our sister publication the Pink Triangle blog and take a look at what’s been happening in the news in our News Watch and World Watch features. In our ’Toons page we have another cartoon in the popular Jesus and Mo series and a new one from Peter Welleman, whom we interviewed in the June issue.

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